What is Christianity? In my opinion, it is living and adhering to the truths that Jesus taught. We all know the truths. Even those who aren’t Christian can’t deny their truth and goodness. Love your neighbor as yourself; love your enemies, love God, the fruits of the Spirit; the virtues taught by Paul (belief, hope, charity, faith); repentance…the list goes on and on, but you get the idea.

Some of you may have seen the recent not-so-Christian-comments on my blog from some of my friends from other “christian” faiths. I know some of you have read them and one of you has commented on how un-christlike many of the comments seem to be. It caused me to reflect and was brought to my attention again today as I was reading an article entitled “Mitt Romney’s Evangelical Problem.”

In this article the author discusses her up-bringing in a christian denomonation of another faith. She said her church would show videos on how Mormonism was akin to devil worshipping and how anyone who affiliates with a Mormon or supports one will bring down the wrath of God so to speak.

If this is what’s being taught in Christian churches and schools it’s no wonder I receive comments of hatred against my beliefs. They’ve all been conditioned to react in this way.

On the flip side being raised a Mormon I was conditioned to believe in “the one true church.” I know that in the past I’ve offended many Christians due to my arrogance and assumptions that what I believe is the only way to Heaven as well. I apologize to my Christian friends for this.

My call is to all athiests, agnostics, Jews, Budhists, Christians…everyone. Let’s open our eyes and start at the basics. If we believe in something higher than ourselves, let’s start acting like it. If someone believes/looks like/behaves/ or is something differently than us; responding with hate will not solve anything. Hate breeds hate.

I used to listen to the rock group, Creed back in the day. They have a line from their song “What’s this Life For?” that goes “…we all live under the reign of one King.”

Whatever we believe this “King” is, let’s join together and shed our prejudices and our labels we’ve put on others. Let’s all take steps towards loving and living “Christian” virtues. Whether you proclaim yourself to be a Christian or athiest, you can’t deny that the virtues taught by Christ are essential to humanity.